August 23, 2009

I like to think that all great photos have both great light and great moments. But what IS a moment? Here’ s a wonderful short film about that idea from director/editor Will Hoffman shot by Julius Metoyer III. Super sweet!!!

August 15, 2009

August 8, 2009

As a still photographer, the challenge is to tell the story in a single photograph. It’s a little more complicated when you get to moving images but here’s a nice version of a 5 minute history story in a single unbroken film shot. OK, it’s for whiskey but it’s still engaging. Robert Carlyle is the actor and Jamie Rafn is the director.

August 6, 2009

Louis Psihoyos and I were photographer’s together at Fortune Magazine and also National Geographic Magazine. He’d gone quiet for a time but now I see what he’s been up to: The Cove.I call it a brilliant documentary; a friend called it an advocacy movie with a sense of humor. Make a difference and go see it. The trailer here is brilliant too.

June 15, 2009

The close of Look3 last night left many images, people and conversations lodged in my psyche. The 7 hour ride home today left me with some time to digest. A few of the things that I burped up included these pleasant memories:

Yolando Cuomo Studio’s Paper Cinema. Leave it to a pair of book designers to create one of the most creative multimedia events of the week.

I was also pleasantly surprised by the BURN Magazine grant to to Emerging Photographer Alejandro Chaskielberg for his project The High Tide. Wow, work that is truly fresh and exciting gets rewarded? My hope is renewed, if just for a little while. Thanks, David.

For the grand finale, I was looking forward to the “Works”, multimedia pieces “showcasing some of the most current photography projects.”

The evening program included three wonderful and stimulating projects:

These ranged from a simple, straightforward but extremely well crafted visual story with music and sounds to a very sophisticated narrative that left me breathless to a mind blowing seemingly breathing, living multimedia triptych that was like a very bad nightmare–but in the best way.

As for most of the rest of the multimedia last night, the only image that came to my mind was Play Them Off Keyboard Cat. And the sooner the better.

My second big take-away from the festival was about storytelling. “Storytelling” is the buzz word for everyone these past few years but it seems that only people from the United Kingdom really seem to comprehend what it means, at least at Look3 this past week.

As my colleague Jessica explained it to me on the long drive home, Americans pretty much think they themselves are the story, that anything they say or do or happens to cross the very shallow threshold of their attention span is interesting to someone else.

Perhaps it’s because it’s illegal to say to someone of any age: “That is boring” or “You are not the winner,” that American’s think that anything that pops into their mind is as fascinating to everyone else as it is to them. It is not. You are not the star of the show. Play Them Off.

Photographers so often think that because they’re talented image makers, they’re going to be equally good at things like writing and voicing narration. There are legions of talented and award winning people who are very good at those things. You are not. Play ‘dem Off .

Telling a story and engaging an audience that is not your family or friends does not include taking a pile of your very excellent images and dropping them onto a stolen pop song and expecting them to have any cohesion or power. They do not.

Contrary to your belief, your belly button is not the most interesting thing onstage. Look, I love you already and your images can tell me a story. But you have to work at communication else, Play YOU Off.

March 3, 2009

People often ask me to come speak about my work. These days I love talking about multimedia because it’s my current passion. So when the American Society of Picture Professionals asked me to stop by on Tuesday, March 10 at 6.30, I thought it’d be fun to look at a single piece from start to finish. Hope you can make it.

August 4, 2008

I’ve been to China on assignment for National Geographic Magazine four times in the last decade so it was interesting to dig into that story again, this time for MediaStorm on behalf of the Asia Society. The website and Longing for Blue Skies, the short film I produced and edited, just launched last week on their website.

It was fun to look through all the wonderful photographic coverage on China. One of the things I’m learning is to craft sequences using a single photographer’s work as a way to give more structure to the narrative.

The other fun part of this project was the chance to sit down with Orville Schell, a writer, former journalism school dean and now the Arthur Ross Director, Asia Society Center on US-China Relations

It was my first major on-camera interview (which I directed and lit ) and Orville was a joy. You could hear the sound bites tumbling out of his mouth and the hardest part of the job was getting the two hour interview down to my first cut of 9 minutes, then again down to the current 6 minute piece.

While you’re on the site, check out the Room with a View feature. A nifty piece of citizen journalism that involved a simple look out the window.

June 17, 2008

I love teaching and I love learning too. So I was in good company as a coach at the NPPA MultiMedia Immersion session in Louisville, KY. The students were photographers (one a Pulitzer Prize winner) picture editors, newspaper directors of photography and even other teachers; photojournalism professors from the top three PJ universities in America. It was great because I learned a ton. You can see all the student stories online.

May 18, 2008

My work as multimedia producer and editor on Bearing Witness was awarded the top prize in the Multimedia- Photo/Video at the new New York Photo Awards. It’s a huge thrill for me as Bearing Witness was my first MediaStorm project.

March 18, 2008

My part in the project took more than eleven weeks of production, combing through more than 20 hours of videotapes of interviews with Reuters journalists, photographers, editors, producers and staff plus video footage captured from Reuters TV cameramen in Iraq. There were also 3,600 still images, the best of the best that Reuters photographers captured during the 5 year Iraq War, selected in a wide edit by Reuters’ talented executive team of Ayperi Ecer and Jassim Ahmad.

The maps and the revolutionary timeline, design and dev were handled by MediaStorm designer Tim Klimowitz, who is also an awesome Guitar Hero playa.

January 13, 2008

My friend and former teacher Zach Wise has been working on the redesign–more re-imagining– of the Las Vegas Sun’s website. It finally launched today with lots of big photos and bigger multimedia pieces.